Buck Read online

  “Girard Avenue. Girard Avenue.”

  “Can I get your number?” I ask as the train screeches.

  “Nope.” My heart nose-dives into my stomach.

  “Damn, it’s like that?”

  “I can’t have boys call my house.” A smile curls. “So give me yours.”

  “Paper?”

  “Write it here,” she says, and holds out her hand. I take her hand and kiss it with the Paper Mate. The ink doesn’t show. Her hand feels soft and warm, like clothes fresh out of the dryer.

  “It’s not writing,” I say, trying to form an M as the train slows.

  “Press a little harder,” she says. “It works. And you gotta hurry, this is my stop coming.” I finish writing but don’t want to let her hand go. She pulls away.

  “Okay, I’ll call you sometime.”

  “Spring Garden Street. Spring Garden Street.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight,” she says, running off the train.

  Dear Carole,

  Chaka’s abandoning me and I’ve given up hope that he’ll reflect on his role in abandoning the family even as he preaches about the black family. What is that? Why is that? The whole black community loves Chaka and they don’t know the internal rhythms of pain and destruction that are happening in the family. I don’t know either.

  The house is quiet, expecting, and waiting. I can hear Chaka coming up the street and pulling into the driveway. He will come in and I will pretend to be asleep. He used to stop in Malo’s room when he was little but he no longer does that. Just as well—Malo is not in his room. The quiet of the street belies the anxious stirring of teenage boys who are deep into their mischief. Malo is acting out in a secretive way.

  I hear and see my car pull out of the driveway. Malo is on the prowl. He thinks that I don’t know. I don’t use my car every day but when I get into my car, I notice that things are different. Is this a rite of passage? I wouldn’t know, as I didn’t grow up with access to a car or even thought of driving. Maybe I’ll say something to him in the morning. Malo may or may not admit to it but he won’t apologize. This is a child who doesn’t know how to say “I am sorry.” What is that about? It’s so interesting. He is an old soul in a young body. It is as if he has the right to do whatever is necessary and I am supposed to understand that. He loves to say, “Don’t worry, Mom.”

  Where is he going? Is he seeing some girl? Is he hanging out with his friends? Is he drinking, drugging, or what? He will be home with the sunrise. I won’t be awake when he drives back into the driveway. Is he running away from me? Did I run away from my mom? Well, I did, but in a different way. I was a difficult teenager, and like Malo, I felt as if my destiny was entirely in my hands. I “outgrew” my mother before I reached my teens. Malo will leave soon, like I did, and never come back.

  My sister already caught Malo in his room with some girl that she called a “wench.” I found nude photos of some girl in his room. Different girls call for him, LaTasha, Toya, Shanika, Alisha, too many to remember, at all hours of the night.

  Everything is a secret. I am sure that he does this because he doesn’t want to hurt me. It does hurt, but worse, it further divides Chaka and me. Chaka thinks that both boys’ behavior points directly to me. He says I’m not strict enough and I give them too much. True, I am not strict and I probably have given them too much. But if it takes two to tango, then I am a solo dancer trying to raise two sons alone!

  This is a house of secrets. Malo’s nightly forays into the streets, Chaka’s nightly forays at the office or out of town, and my nightly forays forgetting, escaping, and wishing pain away.

  The house is quiet. My heart is racing. I want to touch Chaka and wake him. How is he doing, what is he thinking, what does he want? Can simple questions be that difficult? I am silent too; quiet! The night is still and I can hear Chaka’s breathing (snoring). Daudi is away but I can hear his cry too. “Mom!” I can hear Malo’s unspoken voice. He looks at me and proclaims; “I am a man. You won’t have to worry about me like you worry about Uzi.” Not true. Malo is my love child in more ways than one, but we don’t talk.

  My soul and heart are in flight. I am looking for me. I am looking for the “me” that I lost somewhere along the way. Morning has come. Malo is home, Chaka is up and I am pretending to be asleep. My oldest son is away and my home has become the house of secrets.

  God, give me strength.

  Amina

  * * *

  * “93 ’Til Infinity,” Souls of Mischief, 1993.

  7

  Phone Tap

  The phone rings. Maybe it’s Nia? My heart beats, rings with fear.

  But as soon as I hear—

  You have a collect call …

  —I already know.

  … from … “Uzi” … an inmate at the Arizona State Prison Complex … To accept this call press the star key—

  * * * * * *

  Your call is being connected.

  “Hello?”

  “Malo!”

  “Uzi! What’s up?”

  “I fucked up, bro.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got knocked. I’m in jail.”

  “For what?”

  “Can’t really talk about it right now, man, shit is crazy … put Mom on the phone.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Damn, where she at?” Uzi doesn’t even know she’s in the psych ward. Should I tell him?

  “When you getting out?”

  “I can’t even call it, Malo.”

  “But you’re a minor. Last time—”

  “This ain’t like last time. They tryna charge me as an adult.”

  A hollow silence.

  You have ten seconds left for this call.

  “I love you, man.”

  “Love you too.”

  “And yo, Malo?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Get me outta here!”

  Dear Carole,

  I took Daudi to the airport this morning. It was difficult. After all of the drama and situations, this tall skinny boy pleaded with me not to send him to Arizona. He is a baby inside and I had to be resolute. Only I wasn’t. Was I doing the right thing? Daudi has been through his share of troubles with schools and run-ins with police, but why can’t Chaka and I get a grip on things? Daudi is bright but seems to be unable to do well in school. Perhaps there was some kind of attention disorder. Now he is totally swept up in what his friends are doing, and unfortunately they’re also up to no good.

  Didn’t black people always send their children to the South to give them some training or to get them straightened out? I’m following a tradition, or am I? Arizona isn’t the South and my brother has problems of his own. This is a Hail Mary pass and even as I put Daudi on the plane I had my doubts. My brother has problems of his own. Right now he is sober but I don’t know how long that will last.

  Daudi looked so small in his long lanky body and his eyes glistened big and wet. What am I doing? Am I doing this to please Chaka? Truth be told, Daudi and Chaka never bonded. In the beginning it never occurred to me that he wouldn’t love my son. He loved me and promised to take care of my son. I took him at his word. But it wouldn’t be so easy. Chaka is not a child’s person. He barks orders and expects little people to obey. He doesn’t play or get down and dirty with children, so I guess that there was very little bonding for Daudi and him to do.

  But I am Daudi’s mother and I am responsible for him. He came into this world fighting and had an uphill battle healthwise. I remember saying to the doctor when I had to have surgery while he was still in my womb, “Please save my baby.” He was so tiny when he arrived but he was fighting and I just knew that he would be this incredible child. I was right, but something happened.

  I leave the airport feeling so sad. It is not a good day for me. In my heart, I know that I have let my son down. Am I doing this to lessen the stress in a house that is already filled with quiet tension? Am I doing this instead of doing something
else, something more radical, like … what?

  Malo will miss his brother. Will this make it better for Malo?

  I am so full of doubt today when I should be more positive, but looking at Daudi walk down the hall to the plane reminded me when I put him in nursery school when he was three years old. It was in Buffalo and it was his first day. I dropped him off and he stood at the gate crying for me as I walked away. At least then, despite my aching heart, I knew that I would return to get him that evening. He isn’t so sure now as I leave him; what is he thinking?

  What am I thinking? I wish I could really talk to Chaka. But it is all pronouncements and sermons. He doesn’t have time to really think about Daudi and doesn’t give Malo any time either.

  I can’t dwell on this now but I want to go home and sleep for seven days and seven nights. I don’t know how to deal with yet another pain. I want to scream while I dance and dance while I scream. I want to forget that pain can be so intimate. I want to travel beside Daudi on his collar, whispering in his ear, soothing his shoulders, kissing his cheeks, and telling him, “I love you.”

  If nothing else, I am a warrior. I must get stronger so I can be there for my sons. I have to resist going into a black hole and never seeing light. My strength is my light and both of my sons need me.

  I can’t say what the weather is like today or how the sky is tinged. All I can say is that I took Daudi to the airport to put him on a plane to Arizona. He cried, and as I walked away, the tears that were raining inside of me began to fill up the spaces in my eyes and then envelop my face until I couldn’t see. I can’t say how the weather is today but I know that inside me, it is raining.

  God, give me strength.

  Amina

  8

  Relapse

  My mom’s back from the hospital in the same nightgown she left in. She’s in her chair, on the horn with my uncle, all the way reclined like she’s at the dentist getting teeth pulled.

  Outside is gusty, wind whirling through trees, leaves clapping. The wind slaps the house like it stole something. Slams the screen door into the jamb over and over again. Howls through the halls, haunting.

  “He relapsed,” she whispers to me, palming the mouthpiece. I sit on her bed and study her face: the winces, grimaces, and slow blinks. It’s all a blur of bad news. The latest is that Uzi’s in solitary confinement, so she can’t speak to him. She hasn’t talked to him yet. Uncle Jabbar has updates.

  “Twenty-five years!” she cries out.

  What the fuck? Twenty-five years of what?

  I hear Uzi’s voice over the prison static: Get me outta here!

  “Oh God,” Mom says. “What?” She can’t stop shaking her head. Weary lids. She tries to say something to me but can’t get it out. She’s melting right in front of me.

  My mom’s crying ’cause her insides are dyin

  her son tryin her patience, keep her heart racin*

  Later, I hear snatches of the story:

  Uzi and his boy Antwan, they call him Shotgun, a Crip from St. Louis …

  They fuck these girls from a group home, runaways …

  She tells Uzi she’s sixteen … she’s thirteen …

  And she’s white.

  * * *

  * “Regrets,” Jay-Z, 1996.

  9

  Neveruary

  “I don’t want you hanging on the corner,” my mom says. “Those guys are too old for you anyway.” I don’t think they’re too old, they’re Uzi’s age, but I don’t argue with her about it. She’s already mad stressed about Uzi, plus she just got back from the psych ward a few days ago. She’s as delicate as eyelashes.

  “ ’K, Ma … but I gotta walk past there to get home.”

  “You can go the other way.”

  “What other way?”

  “The back way?”

  “Up Star Trek?”

  “Yes,” she laughs, “and why do you call it that?”

  “ ’Cause the baseheads, before they light up, say, ‘Beam me up, Scotty.’ They smoke crack out of car antennas.”

  “I just don’t want you hanging on the corner. Just say hi and keep going. You don’t have to stop for them.”

  “I got you.”

  “No, really,” she says, sucking her teeth. “They are out there looking for young black boys to put in the system. I don’t want you to become a statistic … like your brother.”

  “I got you.”

  “And what do you mean, you got me? I’m not your homie.” She laughs.

  “I won’t hang down there.”

  But of course I do. What, I’m supposed to stay in the crib? The corner is popping, electric, buzzing. Anything can happen and does. Different people are always coming through and they all know Uzi and that I’m his little brother. And if they don’t, once they find out—oh, you Uzi’s little bro?—they show me mad love.

  And momma told me, don’t hang with the homies

  But they got me if they need me, den it’s on G*

  Everybody calls me “young buck” when they see me. The cops ride by all slow. Grit on everybody. We grit right back. Sometimes they jump out and search everybody.

  “What’s wrong?” they ask as soon as they see my long face. I tell 10 Gs the deal.

  “A white bitch?” Ted blurts out like he’s asking the whole city. “She’s white?” I just nod—yeah, man. “Come on, man, don’t tell me that. Tell me something else, anything. Tell me he shot somebody, tell me he robbed a bank, tell me whatever. Just don’t tell me this—white!”

  “In Arizona too? Damn Oohwop,” D-Rock says. D-Rock looks like he lives on a bench in Fisher Park. He’s wearing what he always wears: greasy army fatigues and a military hat on some Black Moon shit. He calls it BDU—basic dress uniform. Cargos. Camos. Velcro. Gore-Tex. Kevlar. That’s his bag. “ ’cause I’m a mothafuckin soldier,” he told me one day when I asked why he wears the same shit every day.

  D-Rock calls himself the hood scientist. He hates the white man but loves white pussy. He’s always got a white jawn with him.

  “Fuckin Arizona!” Ted shakes his head. “Of all places!”

  Population none in the desert and sun

  With a gun cracker running things under his thumb†

  “It’s racist as shit out there, man,” Scoop says.

  “I know,” Ted says, “they don’t even take off for Dr. King’s birthday.”

  “Vicious. What?”

  “Yeah man, you ain’t know that?”

  “Crazy.”

  “It ain’t like you gotta recite ‘I Have a Dream’ or some shit.”

  “It’s just a day off work,” Ted says. “But they’d rather go to work than take a day off for a black man.”

  “They straight-up hate us out there. Fuckin hot-ass desert,” D-Rock says.

  “And a straight-up Philly ngh like Uzi?” Scoop says. “They don’t want him comin home till Neveruary!”

  “The judge might try to roof him. The white man don’t like you messing with his little Suzie.”

  “They can’t give him no wheel of death for that.”

  “What’s the wheel of death?”

  “Life.”

  This all feels like broken glass in my mind.

  “Did you talk to him?” Ted asks. “What did he say?”

  I hear Uzi: Get me outta here!

  Dear Carole,

  Malo ran away. Not like the time he ran away when he was five years old, when he just went to the end of the block and looked to see if I was looking. No, this time he really ran away. He’s fourteen.

  The thing is—he took my car. What kind of running away is that? Not only is my child gone, but my ride too. Initially I think he’ll return in the evening. I’m upset but not worried. But when nighttime comes and he doesn’t return, I get worried. I think about calling the police. Chaka says that we should wait. I call everyone I know but no one has seen or heard from Malo and I don’t know his friends’ phone numbers.

  Morning comes and Malo still hasn’t c
ome home. I decide to call the police. The police seem uninterested in finding a runaway black boy but they take down the information. I don’t want to report the car stolen because that will criminalize Malo.

  Malo ran away but there wasn’t an argument and he wasn’t on punishment, so I’m baffled. Where is he and why did he leave? Of course this means he isn’t going to school, but I’m not even thinking about school, I just want to make sure that he is safe. Chaka doesn’t seem worried but I’m sure he is. We are both amazed that he took my car but I had information that Chaka didn’t. I know that Malo had taken my car many times while I was asleep and his father was away. So while it was definitely outrageous that Malo took my car, since he’s only fourteen and doesn’t have a license or even a permit, I wasn’t that shocked.

  Then after a week, he strolls in. I ask Malo, what was he thinking? He simply says that he was ready to live on his own. If I wasn’t so angry, I would have laughed. Actually, I did laugh. What chutzpah! Where did he get the nerve? Well, I really don’t have to look too far.

  I ran away when I was thirteen too. I not only ran away but I left a note for my mother saying that I was running away to get married and that she shouldn’t look for me. I left in the middle of the night and took the subway to the 34th Street bus terminal and took a bus to Reading, PA! I arrived in Reading with nothing but the clothes on my back and called my aunt Patrice from the bus station and asked her to come get me.

  There was an incident that made me run away. My mother wouldn’t let me go to a beach party that a lot of my friends were going to and I was very angry about it. My mother and I didn’t have a good relationship and I wanted to get away. My aunt Jaime had taken me to Reading when I was six years old and I had fond memories of Reading. For one thing, my aunt Patrice had a house and that seemed like the ultimate luxury to me. Little did I know at the time that Heller’s Court was called “Hell’s Court” for a reason.

  I took money out of my aunt Jaime’s purse. I am sure that my mother caught grief about that but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. My mother finally called my aunt Patrice and my aunt admitted that I was there. My mother didn’t come get me. I don’t even think that she talked to me. She was angry with my aunt Patrice for not calling her but at least she knew where I was.